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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323685">Remembrance Part 1</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_N_Whitmore/pseuds/A_N_Whitmore'>A_N_Whitmore</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Totality [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Desire, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Conflict</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:46:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_N_Whitmore/pseuds/A_N_Whitmore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss and Peeta are almost at a breaking point in their relationship. She's begun turning to Haymitch for comfort and comes to need him just as much as she needs Peeta. They've always been an extension of each other, it just seems natural to turn to him when she has reached the end of her rope. However, Katniss cannot leave Peeta. In her desperation she invites Haymitch into their lives to try to mend what is broken and finds that he is the link that holds them together.</p>
<p>This is a long fic that deals with many complex issues. It will not be in chapters but in parts, be prepared to read.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haymitch Abernathy/Katniss Everdeen, Haymitch Abernathy/Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Haymitch Abernathy/Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Totality [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Remembrance Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I had the idea for this fic in my head for a few weeks now as it deals with many complex issues I've had in my own relationships. This is an outlet. This is a fic that embodies years of pent up frustration and desire. Desire that almost cost me myself and caused my family to fracture. If you can't handle it, then find another fic to read. But, there is someone out there who needs this.</p>
<p>Another thing... before I get flames... I do not read them, nor do I answer them. You will be deleted and blocked from commenting.  My writing is my writing, get a new hobby if all you want to do is tease or bitch. This is a therapy. And another thing Dia de los Muertos is very close to my heart as the first love of my life was Spanish. The food and things described are what she did, if I get anything wrong, please understand I was sixteen at the time.</p>
<p>*Stacy I dedicate this to you, may you rest easy*</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>Everything about me is a fucked up wreck, I know it and she knows it. Yet somehow we find ourselves here. He’s been having his nightmares, screaming and throwing things. It’s only a matter of time before his fist finds her again. Will she ever fight back? Hell if I know, but that boy should have never volunteered instead of me.</p>
<p>After the games they gave him therapy in Thirteen, they even dragged him back to the Capitol for more extensive treatment but nothing works. His phantom limb screams; I can hear him yelling about the pain, yelling that she should leave. Perhaps she should, perhaps I should take the broken girl and leave. We should go somewhere warm, live out our last days on the beaches of Four with Annie and the baby.</p>
<p>I watch her out of the corner of my eye, quietly sobbing as she drinks. Between the two of them I’m almost out of my liquor. The cravings are getting harder to ignore, the withdrawal getting worse by the day. I’ve started collecting the remnants of corn seeds I had stashed for the geese. Maybe I can make my own mash. My father wasn’t bad with a home made still.</p>
<p>“I hate this life Haymitch… I want out. I’m fucking done. My mother left, Prim’s dead and Peeta might as well be. I’m going to the Wilds. I mean where else can I go? Everyone wants to use us as a pawn, the face of a rebellion, a spokesman, a political lure. When do I get to fucking be me? My best friend… killed my sister damn it, and she’s the only one who did a damn thing worth while! I can’t breathe, I can barely even think. I want to just stop the world and get off because I swear to God, if I have another nightmare about their faces… about her face, I’m going to die.”</p>
<p>She gets up and sways a little as she walks over to me, and not for the first time I find myself seeing just how much she is like me. She’s a weakness, she has been since the day I met her. Her body lithe like Artemis. She has a chip on her shoulder that is getting bigger day by day.</p>
<p>“Finnick shouldn’t have died, it should have been me or Peeta. Maybe we wouldn’t have become so fucked up.”</p>
<p>I let her slip her tight legs over mine even though I know it is so wrong. She’s barely twenty but the feeling of her closeness is something I cannot ignore. I make feeble excuses every time it happens and yet I let her do as she wants. We’re wanderers through life, pained and broken.</p>
<p>The sounds of screaming through the open windows doesn’t make her pause as she lifts my shirt, forcing my arms up in the air as she peels it off. The worn and threadbare material rips and I find myself wishing I could rip hers in return. I give into the temptation as I find my hands fisting Capitol silk. One of Cinna’s most likely. The silk gives way easily as she closes her eyes, tears dripping. This time there are no denials as she forces her hand into the waistband of my jeans, her knuckles catching on the button. Her hand is as warm and as calloused as mine from digging the mass graves.</p>
<p>I hiss as she finally makes contact with my cock, rising at the mere thought of her. I’m a sick old lech and yet I want her. It’s always like this.</p>
<p>“Stay with me.” She begs as she pumps her hand over me, working me ruthlessly, her pace and pressure just how I’ve wanted it to be. Just the right side of pain. Just the right side of feeling alive. She makes everything burn awake. She never looks at me until I reciprocate.</p>
<p>It’s always at sundown, when his arguing begins, usually after she forces him to stop painting or baking, or whatever it is he does. I know when he’s been at the bottle because his yelling becomes louder, more insistent that her mutt self should fucking leave. Sometimes it ends in violent lovemaking, sometimes it ends with his fists. Most times it ends like this, with her fucking me on the couch or in the rocking chair in the kitchen, knowing that he watches.</p>
<p>Sometimes I can feel his eyes on us, roving over our connected bodies as he drinks, watching out of the kitchen window. I catch her looking back as I kiss her breasts while she moves over me. I distract her with tender words, smatterings of the poetry he should be speaking to her. I want to see her face free of anger, free of the sadness.</p>
<p>“Kat, Kat… slow down, we have all night.”</p>
<p>Sometimes she acts as if the world is going to end at any moment, she sucks up any tenderness as though it were going to disappear like mist and for all I know it could. Everything we have in this world is fleeting. This life is never kind, it’s cruel and black. It destroyed our goodness and all we are trying to do is gather the pieces to build some semblance of peace.</p>
<p>I feel so close, I want to bury myself in the warmth of her to feel a sense of safety, to give her that sense of safety. I force her to lift, my hands fitting over the black and blue prints he’s brutally left behind. If he weren’t experiencing the same hell, if she hadn’t denied me, his blood would be all over.</p>
<p>“Tell me you love me. Tell me I’m not fucked up… Tell me we’re not failing.” She cries into my shoulder as I slide into her.</p>
<p>“He should be telling you he loves you, he should be here…” I try to redirect her misplaced desire to him, to help her realize it should be Peeta.</p>
<p>“I barely know him, I barely knew him. You’re here, you stay. You don’t…” She stops talking as I thrust slowly, gently into her; her body shivering as the rocking chair moves beneath us on her downward stroke.</p>
<p>The first time this happened, she sported a black eye, already drunk as was I. That first time she was soaked in summer rain. Her mouth hot and insistent on mine as she shoved me against the wall. I’d been so caught off guard by the feeling of her mouth that I didn’t even push her away like I should have. Every time I should have pushed her away, and yet I think to myself, who has shown her love? Just like me, who has given me love?</p>
<p>I thrust harder, giving her the sense of oneness she craves, the need I know she wishes he could express without violence. I’ve longed for love like this, love that shouldn’t be mine. The faces of those who gave me love and died because of it float in my mind’s eye. I long for her touch in the night.</p>
<p>“I love you.” The overwhelming sense of longing doesn’t abate in my chest as she cries against me with shuddering gasps as her fist pounds against my shoulder, “I love you.” I find myself whispering it over and over as she moves. My lips seek hers, the taste of alcohol on her tongue, the hot heat of her flesh enveloping me. The weight shifts on the rocker as she holds her hand against the wall, her body moving faster as she cries out in orgasm, her voice emptying itself in anguish as she fills the empty void in my chest. She’s never returned the words she begs me to say but I give her what she needs.</p>
<p>“You aren’t a fuck up, you aren’t a failure. Life is a fuck up beautiful, life failed us.”</p>
<p>I find my own release hollow, the thread of loss in my belly pulling up a specter that should have long been let go. I shove that spirit back to the pit, focusing on the living flesh before me. I want to watch her come undone over and over. The totality of our existence has been encapsulated into this bubble of self loathing.</p>
<p>I want to keep her, I want to tell him to run and take a swan dive off the nearest cliff. Yet, she isn’t mine, I know that when she wakes, she’ll shower my claim off of her like it never existed and take her bruised body home to him. He’ll apologize and swear he’ll take his medications and everything will be golden for about a week. Meanwhile I will sit and wait, wait for it all to fall apart again. I secretly hope it stays broken, every time I hope she stays. Yet, I let her make her choices.</p>
<p>I catch her as she comes down from the cloud of endorphins that her release has given her, wishing I could feel free for just an hour. My hands move lovingly across Capitol clear flesh, soft as a child’s. Hair will never grow there again, a passage of womanhood erased. It angers me that they took the soft downy hair of her legs, the thatch of hair betwixt her thighs. It was a part of her removed without her consent. I wonder what else has been taken besides her youth and her innocence. What else could be taken? Her passion? I’m a selfish lover, I’ll keep her passion held safe beneath the hellfire of my own damned soul.</p>
<p>She usually refuses my bed despite the fact that I keep the bed clean for her alone, her toffee and chocolate hair could sprawl across crisp, clean white sheets without fear of being ripped from her crown. I guess the bed no longer felt like a safe space.</p>
<p>I set her before the fire, keeping away the autumnal chill brought in from the broken window panes. I should move into another Victor house, one untouched by my rampant alcoholism. Better yet I could build a house for her, amongst the hills of the forest untouched by man.</p>
<p>I’ve begun stocking up on her favorite tea and foodstuffs, making the house presentable but nothing will change twenty four years of alcoholic ruin. The walls will never scrub clean and I’m aware of the faded bloody handprints and holes, yet this house is a testament to my survival.</p>
<p>I’ve never wanted to make a home for someone as much as I wanted to make a home for her. Age didn’t make a difference anymore, the protests I had given that first night faded after her first refusal to stop touching me, not that I had objected much. When she had left the following morning she had taken a part of me with her.</p>
<p>As I dress in another shirt, I offer her a spare, thankful that Hazelle had taught me how to do my own laundry after nearly fifteen years of suffering through vomit soaked and blood stained apparel. The image of her in my clothing as the firelight glints off of her pearlescent face is enough to make my heart catch in my throat. Who was I to have something so innocent despite all the damage?</p>
<p>She looks at me like an owl, her eyes large in the glow, searching for words that she cannot grasp. So, instead of speaking to fill the silence, I busy myself with making her tea and pull out bread and cheese from the larder.</p>
<p>“Do you still have those strawberries you picked the other day?”</p>
<p>It’s the first thing she’s said to me since she came down from her orgasm. Strawberries, her favorite fruit, she always loved collecting them for Peeta’s jam. I’d begun picking them to make her work easier, her burden light. Not that I, a Victor from Twelve had much work to do besides cleaning the rubble of the destroyed district and burying the bones of the citizens that I helped kill in Coin’s rebellion. I wish I’d been the one to kill Snow as she’d killed Coin.</p>
<p>“Haymitch.” I can hear the concern in her voice as she turns and goes to get up but I wave her off, having her sit back on the hearthstone as I pull the strawberries from the cold rack above the ice chest.</p>
<p>“Sit doll face. I’ve got everything under control.” I know that she would take over in a heartbeat if I’d let her, but that’s not how we’ll do things once I get her set up in a house free from pain.</p>
<p>
  <em>‘Keep living in the fantasy tonight Haymitch, she’ll leave you again tomorrow and go back to that tortured baker boy. You’re just something to relieve the pain. Like the bottle, you’re a momentary distraction.’</em>
</p>
<p>It spills out of my mouth before I can shut the filter on my damn brain.</p>
<p>“What are we Kat?” It doesn’t come out as angry as my brain feels it should, nor does it sound as hopeless as it seems. I pull the boiling kettle off of the stove singeing my fingers slightly as I pour her tea. She is already reaching for the strawberries she so craves and for a split second I allow my mind to wander to thoughts of her rounded belly and laughing smile as she swings on the sturdy oak tree beside the meadow. No longer would it be the hanging tree, instead it would be a place of life and joy.</p>
<p>She takes the tea I hand her, leaning forward, her breasts peeking out from the oversized button down. I long to touch her again despite my better judgement. We sit silent for a long time and soon the pressure is too much, I can feel myself sobering and very nearly telling her to forget it. To say that I liked her in whatever way I could have her, but the thought of sending her home to a man more broken than I was… Could I let her leave again?</p>
<p>“We’re… Do I have to put a label on it? Does it even matter at this point?” She fiddles with the strawberry in her hand, picking at the crown of leaves about the stem. I want to shout to the rooftops that ‘Yes it fucking matters!’, I’ve never allowed myself to feel this since… since before my Games.</p>
<p>“Will you go back?” I hate putting her on the spot, despite the fact that she can’t clarify everything. I need to know that she would be safe.</p>
<p>“I need to make sure he gets the help he needs.”</p>
<p>“You asked me to tell you I love you. Kat… who asks that if they don’t feel something?” I could hear the slight crack in my voice, the betrayal of an emotion I never should have felt.</p>
<p>“No, I shouldn’t have said that. No, let me ask something else. Who is going to help you when he hits you again or god forbid worse?” I reach into the ice chest pulling one of my last bottles of white liquor that Ripper left me before the bombing.</p>
<p>“I…” She puffs out air between those pursed lips, almost shaking with effort. “I need you.”</p>
<p>“What do you need? If it’s sex, fine. I can do that, but don’t ask me to say those words again if you don’t mean it. We’ve been doing this since we came home, you come over and… Really it’s been since he came back. So if you don’t mean it… I get it, if that’s what you want, I won’t stop you. I’ll put this in a box and we’ll never talk about it again.”</p>
<p>“No! You don’t understand, I need you.” The plaintive keening on the word need makes me feel as though she understands or at least grasps how far down the rabbit hole our fucked up relationship is.</p>
<p>“You give me something… Something I can’t describe.” She’s gone from picking at the strawberries to pulling the bread apart and stuffing the goat cheese into it. I watch as she eats, ravenous as always. As though she’s never seen food a day in her life since coming back from the war. Perhaps she hadn’t. I could feel her hip bones beneath my fingers earlier. For all Mellark’s baking bread and pies, he couldn’t manage to find the time to make sure she ate meat and decent fruits and vegetables.</p>
<p>I sit and think for a moment. What exactly is it that I, a nearly forty-two year old drunken murderer could possibly give to a twenty year old war victim? She was a victim, a volunteer to a controlled systemic murder; thrust into a war she never wanted but was forced to play a part.</p>
<p>“You give me stability… and comfort. And something else beyond sex and desire. I don’t feel it with him in the same way, but Haymitch… We were put into the games, you know what that’s like. You bond in ways that you can almost sense what your partner will do. I still love him, and I always will but I need you, and that, that scares me .”</p>
<p>“But you’ll still go home in the morning, you’ll let him apologize and go back to being…” I cut myself off before I can say the words ‘punching bag’. Discussion of the abuse she suffered was a non talking point since day one.</p>
<p>“Yes, but you could come with me.”</p>
<p>“There in your cozy little home with the baker boy? Please.” I try not to laugh at the thought of lazy Sunday mornings with Katniss in bed as Peeta is downstairs baking his heart out. The reality of the situation clearly didn’t support the ludicrous idea.</p>
<p>“He suggested it.”</p>
<p>My heart stops, I could be the cause of the abuse. “Is he hurting you because of me?”<br/>Katniss shakes her head but it doesn’t give me any relief.</p>
<p>“He still has hijacking delusions, he won’t take his meds. He thinks someone is poisoning him with them.”</p>
<p>“Does he know you love me?”</p>
<p>“He sees us sleep together, he knows I go to you more. He tells me to leave him.”</p>
<p>“So you want to shove it in his face more? That isn’t something I can do Kat.” I cup her cheek gently, shaking my head. I couldn’t put her in that position. It was one thing that he knew but quite another to be there under her roof and antagonize the situation worse.</p>
<p>“He says you can keep me safe.”</p>
<p>“Honey, you know damn well how to protect yourself.”</p>
<p>“I can’t hurt him.” She sets her still full cup to the other side and climbs into my lap, pulling my hands up to wrap around her waist. I couldn’t resist burying my face into her neck and inhaling the scent of lavender oil.</p>
<p>“Oh so you think I can, is that it?” I pull my face away from her beautiful skin and stare into her eyes.</p>
<p>“No, I think we can get through to him together.”<br/>===========================================</p>
<p>She manages to convince me over the night time hours with strong reasoning but I am still apprehensive as I pack some clothes and a few important items.<br/>Leaving my home feels like stepping out of a vacuum. I barely left it before her, and that was only for supplies, the Games, and required Capitol time. The thought of living with the two of them, of still being with Katniss while Peeta is there, gives me pause.</p>
<p>“Are you sure you want to do this?” I’m standing outside her house as she unlocks the door and Peeta walks through with a towel covered loaf of bread.</p>
<p>“Katniss.” I call up to her, skipping the stairs as I get in front of her, “Let me go first darlin’”</p>
<p>I walk through and find the dining room table set with all of her favorite foods and a few of mine, a bottle of now rare Capitol brandy sitting near the place setting obviously reserved for me.<br/>She follows behind me and gives a kiss to my stubbled cheek as she heads upstairs for a quick shower. It was a miracle we got running water restored and cleaned.</p>
<p>“Hello Haymitch.” Peeta’s voice still sounds like his former self, just a little more lost, and more aged. He’s sporting a black eye of his own and I cheer Katniss on internally. It must have happened last night.</p>
<p>“Hey kid.” Part of me wants to go over and put his head through a wall, but I know it wouldn’t help the situation. How the hell am I going to help him? I don’t know the first thing about hijacking except for what they told us in Thirteen, modified tracker-jacker venom, repetition of suggestive narrative and lies. I am not a psychologist.</p>
<p>“I made some food, I thought…” Peeta is wringing his hands as he sits at the table. I quickly cut him off with an upraised palm before he continues to talk.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna’ sit and pour myself some refreshments and then… then I’ll talk and you’ll listen.” He looks so small suddenly, and I remember he was abused by his mother. My own abuse makes me feel slightly sympathetic. I pour two fingers of brandy and a pinch of ice from the ice bucket. This was going to be a long night.</p>
<p>“So you know about us and you’re ok with it. Fine. But here’s the deal, you keep on taking those pills. And another thing, you EVER lay a hand on her again and I will kill you. Got it? That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”</p>
<p>“I’m jealous.” Peeta picks at the invisible lint on his polo shirt</p>
<p>“Jealous of what?” I kick my feet up onto the chair nearest me, afraid of his answer. The lamb and plumb stew smells good. He must have gotten the lamb from the co-op butcher in exchange for some of his iced buns.</p>
<p>“I’m jealous of how she smiles at you, I’m jealous that she wants you more than she wants me, I’m angry at myself for hurting her, for having these damn thoughts and memories that I know never happened. I… I want to love her Haymitch, I really do. But I don’t know how. All I know is how to take things and break them apart.”</p>
<p>“Nah kid, that isn’t quite right, they took you apart, they broke you but you are stronger than they are. Every single one of the people that hurt you are dead. So now we’ve got to put you back together again.”</p>
<p>The boy looked down at his feet, his shoulders shaking slightly with the effort of choking back tears.<br/>“I can’t promise I won’t have these feelings again.”</p>
<p>“Then you take it out on me. You want to punch somebody, hurt somebody? Hell you want to fuck someone? You do all the hitting and everything else to me. You don’t take it out on her. That girl didn’t deserve you back then, but you sure as hell don’t deserve her right now. You’ve got to earn her trust back.”</p>
<p>“I thought you would kill me three months ago. I hoped for it honestly. But, Haymitch…when I, when I do that; it’s like I’m not really me. I mean I know it is, and I accept full responsibilities for it, but it’s like I’m under water. All I can see is her betraying and killing us. Her family, my family. I see her working with an enemy who destroyed our home.”</p>
<p>“But that’s the thing Peeta, it wasn’t her choice. I sided with Coin, yes I am just as culpable; however, she had no choice. Coin was going to keep all of them under lock and key and use me or Johanna. So if anything, I’m the one responsible. Take that anger out on me, Hell go find Gale in Six and take it out on him!”</p>
<p>Peeta flinches at my raised voice and I suddenly feel guilty. I hear the stairs creak behind me and turn to see Katniss, her hair wet and glossy in a white sweater dress. She looks beautiful.</p>
<p>“Well hello babydoll, come join us. Peeta made a beautiful dinner.”</p>
<p>“Smells delicious, thank you Peeta.” I can tell she has her emotions reserved even though the set of her shoulders screams relieved. I’ll bet anything she was relieved she didn’t find blood on the white carpet. She walks over, her bare feet clipping against the hardwood as she pulls out a chair in between Peeta and myself, formerly Prim’s chair. She never sat in Prim’s chair. If she could have put a velvet viewing rope around it she would have. But today, obviously she was ready.</p>
<p>“Peeta? Do we have any of that wine my mother made? The dandelion wine from last summer?”</p>
<p>Dandelion wine, her father’s favorite, she’d cried when I found a bottle in the rubble of the Hawthorne house four months ago. Before her mother had sent her some from District Four. She must have felt this worthy of the occasion.</p>
<p>“Um, let me go look. Haymitch, could you pass Katniss the stew?” I watch as he walks through to the kitchen and opens the door to the root cellar. Katniss looks at me as soon as he is out of earshot as I pass the stew.</p>
<p>“Thank you.” She pauses to take the stew and continues, “I made up our bed in the other room.”</p>
<p>“Kat, we need to stay with him”</p>
<p>“Just for tonight then,”</p>
<p>“Do you really think that’s wise?”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t but I want it anyway.”</p>
<p>Once Peeta came back, he handed her the wine bottle and took a small white case from his pocket. “I’m not having any.”</p>
<p>“Peeta, your meds aren’t due till six, you can have a small glass.” Katniss put her hand on his gently and took the pill case away.</p>
<p>“An Ativan at least?”<br/>“Do you think you need it or can we do the breathing exercises Doctor Aurelius recommended?”</p>
<p>“I can breathe.”</p>
<p>“Good, now close your eyes, we’re in the woods, the winter snow is falling at sunset, the orange soft glow shines through the trees, you are in the middle of it’s glow. Tell me how you feel?”</p>
<p>“I feel cold, on my hands and my arms and warmth on my face.” Peeta’s arms drop slightly. His voice not so tight.</p>
<p>I watch as he breathes, his chest moving rhythmically in a slow breath in and out, followed by three quick inhales, then ending on another slow breath in and out.</p>
<p>“Do you feel the sunlight traveling down your arms as it sets?”</p>
<p>Katniss is very patient, exceedingly so and part of me wonders if she would have become a good mentor, as fucked up as it sounds.</p>
<p>“I can feel it.”</p>
<p>“The sunset is your fear, anxiety and anger. The more the sun sets, the lower your anxiety and anger will get until all you see is stars and the northern lights.”</p>
<p>Peeta sits for a moment, breathing in and out until he opens his eyes and smiles.“Wow, that’s the first time in three weeks since I’ve needed an Ativan.”</p>
<p>I find myself suddenly relaxed as well, having unconsciously mimicked Peeta’s breathing, I can see why it works. Katniss continues on passing the plates followed by taking a small bowl of chicken and rice and setting it on the floor for the large orange and white tomcat sitting in her rocking chair. The ear notched grumpy fuck gets up with little effort and walks over, sniffing at it.</p>
<p>“It has gravy on it to you dick. no complaints or I’ll make you into a muff.”</p>
<p>The cat huffs and grumbles only slightly before tucking in.</p>
<p>“Good, I want you to feel good Peeta.”</p>
<p>The meal continues on as Katniss helps herself to a rather large brandy, her cheeks reddening to a ruddy rouge. The food tastes good and we have little in the way of anymore issues as the meal progresses. I’m glad that she feels safe but I don’t quite trust Peeta yet. One day of medical compliance does not make a cured person. I should know, I wrote the book on faking sobriety back when I actually gave a damn.<br/>After dinner as I help Katniss with the dishes, Peeta goes to paint in his studio with the door unlocked. It’s early yet, only near twelve-thirty. The new town chapel is ringing out Sunday service. Yet, it feels late as the sky is darkening with an early snow storm.</p>
<p>“You want to go sit by the wood stove? I’ve got the dishes here.”</p>
<p>“Forget the rest of the dishes, I’ll get them later.”</p>
<p>“Fine, but that rhubarb pie needs to be put in the ice chest.” I wipe my hands on the dish towel as she walks back through to the living room, seeing the viewing monitor on.</p>
<p>“It’ll keep for a few hours, now come in here, they discovered some old artifact from Pre-Panem in lower Twelve today! Plutarch thinks it’s important.”</p>
<p>“I never thought you would give a damn about any political bullshit again.”</p>
<p>“No, this is from somewhere called the United-States.</p>
<p>I sit next to her on the couch as Plutarch pulls up a picture of an old piece of parchment with a word on it that I don’t quite recognize at the top.” Con-stitu-tion, what the hell does that mean?”</p>
<p>“It isn’t every day you find something like this in Twelve.” She leans forward and reads, ‘We hold these truths to be self evident that all people are created equal.’”<br/>“Maybe there was another country that got taken over, like Panem now. I wonder if they had a revolution.”</p>
<p>I haven’t see her face look this eager in a long time. “I’m sure they’ll tell us. When is it from?”</p>
<p>“1776, 2028, Anno.. dome in a?” Maybe they had a different calendar.”</p>
<p>She yawns, we haven’t slept yet but her eyes are alight as she leans forward. I watch her suddenly open up, her hand lifted as though she could touch the paper through the screen.<br/>“Equal,” she murmurs trying not to yawn again.</p>
<p>“I think you need some sleep beautiful.”</p>
<p>“Only if you come with me.”</p>
<p>I nod my head, ducking to kiss her as I lift her up from the couch and climb the stairs, smelling oil paint and turpentine. Peeta would be in there for a while yet, all we needed to remember was his pills at six, I remember Katniss pleading around six for him to take them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Opening the door, two doors down to the left, I find a blue room with white lace curtains and a rocking chair in the corner, along with a bed whose headboard was covered in daguerreotypes of Katniss’s father, mother, and sister including some twenty-two others. I’m surprised to find a picture of myself and another of Peeta on the bedside table. A silver hairbrush and mirror sit beside them on a small silver tray. I’m also intrigued, to see a pipe and green man’s leaf there as well. So this was how she avoided some of the nightmares.</p>
<p>I set her down on the downy white coverlet and she strips without hesitation.<br/>“There’s a bottle of scotch under the bed.” she says, knowing my penchant for nightmares of my own both waking and resting.<br/>I follow suit, relieving myself of my garments shivering in the cool air.</p>
<p>“I want to quit, or at least cut down. This is probably the last liver repair I’m ever going to have, so I may as well make the most of it.” I pull back the blankets and crawl underneath clean sky blue cotton sheets.</p>
<p>“Good.” She nuzzles down into the bed and my body, her buttocks pressing against me as though she were a puzzle piece designed to fit there. Sleeping with Katniss in a bed is a new experience, but an entirely welcome one. As I wrap my arm about her shoulders, my fingers trace over the side of her neck marveling at how soft her skin is. I lay there in silence as she soon drifts off to sleep, listening to the house creak in the wind. The storm sounds as though it will be a heavy one.</p>
<p>Sleep is the only time I see her defenses drop, her hands uncurl and her face goes slack, the lips sometimes curving into a small smile. Her body doesn’t fight me anymore when I wrap my hands protectively over her heart, instead I swear she sighs my name. When she first fell asleep on my couch in the midst of my alcoholic tornado, her body would not relax. She stayed tight and sleeping fitfully.</p>
<p>I find myself being pulled into sleep along with her and dream peaceful things for the first time in nearly fifteen years. The heavy pressure in my chest, the constant guarding, is easing.</p>
<p>===========================================</p>
<p>I’m not sure how long we sleep for, but the scrape of wood against wood wakes me into alertness.</p>
<p>I look over Katniss’ shoulder to find Peeta sitting in the rocking chair with a sketchpad and charcoal in his paint stained fingers. His tongue slightly jutting out as he measures Katniss and myself with his thumb.</p>
<p>“What’re you doing in here kid?”</p>
<p>“Shh, lay back down. I’ve got a great image going.”</p>
<p>“Normally a person knocks before entering into another person’s room.”</p>
<p>“But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see the two of you like this.”</p>
<p>Part of me watches his face for any sign of the conditioning he’d received but another part of me marvels at his ability to just blindly accept what Katniss wanted.</p>
<p>“Show me what you’re working on?” Peeta flips the sketchpad over and I see myself rendered with my hair over one eye, my mouth against Katniss’ shoulder, the coverlet fallen to reveal my hand over one breast and our legs partially entwined. Her mouth is open in a sigh, her hair spread over the pillow in soft ringlets and waves.</p>
<p>“Peeta?” Katniss breathes, her eyes opening as her hand shifts restlessly against the pillow.</p>
<p>“Katniss.” His voice is at ease, peaceful and full of warmth. For a moment we have Peeta back.</p>
<p>“What’re you doing?”</p>
<p>“Sketching.” he sets the pad down and places the charcoal on top of it. Getting up he crosses the short distance and kisses her forehead. Then, his hand brushes over mine, the one draped possessively across her stomach, and gives it a gentle squeeze.</p>
<p>“Thank you, I forgot to say that earlier.” He grabs the white pill container from her bedside table and takes out two pills.</p>
<p>“One of the pink and one of the blue right?”</p>
<p>“Right, Lithium and Keppra.”</p>
<p>“It’s snowing pretty bad already. The weather monitor says it could last all weekend.” He sits slightly at the bottom of the bed and fidgets with the pills. I can tell his mind is warring over whether to take the pills or not and I have an idea. I’d had lithium before, even have a whole pill set of my own delivered from the Capitol monthly now that Paylor is in office.</p>
<p>“Peeta, hand me the pink pill.”</p>
<p>Katniss sits up shaking her head, “No, Haymitch those are his pills. We have no idea what they’ll do to you.”</p>
<p>“Relax sweetheart. I’ve had them before. Give me the pill, come on hand the pink one over.” Peeta hands me the pink pill and I hold it up between my forefinger and thumb.</p>
<p>“Now look, if these are poisoned I’ll die right? Even if I’ve taken them for a while I would be really sick right?”</p>
<p>“Right.” Peeta looks at the other pill and nods. I watch Katniss visibly relax and sit back against the pillows. Her hand seeks mine and I give her a brush over her palm.</p>
<p>“So I’ve been taking the same pills for months, I’m not sick.”</p>
<p>“Seriously?”</p>
<p>“Seriously.” I reach over to the water pitcher on my side, pop the pill into my mouth and drink directly from it. The pill slides down my throat and I can feel Peeta’s eyes on me. Katniss pulls out another pill from the box and places it in his hand. Passing the pitcher I watch him close his eyes and take the pills with little hesitation. I wonder how long it had taken him to take the morning dose. He hands the pitcher back and appears hesitant to leave.</p>
<p>Katniss speaks up, holding her hand out to him, “Peeta come here.”</p>
<p>“Wait, you actually want me here?”</p>
<p>“Peeta, we’ll always want you here.” I shift to make room for the man, watching his lithe figure crawl up the bed. I can see why Katniss had developed an attempt at a relationship during their lie to the whole of Panem. He was a good looking young man, with a strong stalwart frame and personality. I wasn’t going to lie to myself that I had once imagined the two of them together, soft and gently making love. Yet, when I had found release I felt guilty.</p>
<p>As he reaches us, the look on his face is one of utter peace. He settles between us and hesitates as he looks at Katniss who turns to face him and kisses him softly. Jealously threatens to flare as I watch but he’s pulling my hand over his body to touch Kat.</p>
<p>I brush my hand down her side, looking for confirmation that everything is well with her. The last thing I want to do is make her feel uncomfortable. She has some trepidation but ultimately looks at my calm face and slowly opens up to the idea. Her body language relaxes and she welcomes my touch, blushing as Peeta looks on.</p>
<p>He doesn’t move to touch her, he instead wants me to continue, whispering into my ear for permission to switch places and watch. It isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this, before in the Capitol when I was young; it was commonplace for a whore to be shared or have someone watch. However, Katniss isn’t a whore, and this wasn’t the Capitol of the old days.</p>
<p>“Ask her.”</p>
<p>Peeta looked down as Kat as my hand shifted to brush across his arm in reassurance. It’s the first time I’ve touched him in any manner other than a pat on the back. His eyes close and he sighs. I realize that despite him being with Katniss, I want to still be there just as I always have been for them. The role is changing, but its premise remains the same. I’m the bulwark holding up the tower.</p>
<p>He leans further into my touch and I find myself looking at Katniss who nods quietly as her hands go to undo the buttons of his thermal shirt, the cotton and wool fabric getting in the way of her touch.</p>
<p>“I… Can you please Haymitch?”</p>
<p>“What do you need kid?” I watch as he bites his lip, tears escaping down the side of his face.</p>
<p>“Make me… make me feel like she does.” It comes out in almost a sob and I understand that he has never truly experienced positive touch. He was always the initiator when loving. And during his hijacking blackouts He reenacts a dark part of himself that I’m not entirely sure he comprehends. This child’s abuse went far further than just being hit.</p>
<p>“You sure?” He’s arching into Katniss’ touch, his head shifting from side to side as she kisses over his chest.</p>
<p>“I am.” I turn his head to me, tilting my head and bringing my lips down to meet his. He breaths heavily, tears flowing faster as his tongue seeks entrance to my mouth. I allow it for a few moments tasting mint tea and hazelnut biscotti, but soon take my lips away as Katniss is sitting there watching with dilated pupils and parted lips. She’s straddled over his waist, moving her hips against his obvious arousal.</p>
<p>“Touch her, she’s not the enemy Peeta; she’s a part of us. She’s ours.” I kiss him again, harder this time as he gives in to my demands. His hands rove over her as she lays down over him, fitting just as easily as she does with me. I see her push his thin pants down, and watch them join together. The jealousy I almost had earlier is distant, instead I feel protective over both of them.</p>
<p>“Move Kat, show him how good we are together.” My hands move down over Peeta’s face, my own arousal becoming obvious, I kiss his forehead and move my hand further over his chest and abdomen until I brush against their interconnected bodies earning a moan from both of them. Peeta keeps his hands gentle but he thrusts faster as I wrap my hand about him, his blue eyes flash open as he looks at me.</p>
<p>“Yes. God yes.” He’s ever so quiet as though he’s afraid he’ll be discovered. Kat is moving faster as my thumb keeps bumping against her apex. I kiss down his neck, sucking lightly, occasionally biting. I hear him curse, “Fuck yes, please Haymitch.” His hand reaches up and threads through my blonde locks encouraging me to be bolder.</p>
<p>I wonder just how long he’s had this desire or if this is just a one time deal. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>“Both of you.”</p>
<p>“You promise to listen Peet, you take those pills and talk with us. We’ll be here for you.”<br/>His hips thrust faster as he watches Katniss kiss me, his other hand comes up to thread through Katniss’ hair, her olive skin soaked in sweat. She’s unusually quiet when she comes with him, and he is virtually silent as he comes, staring as though he could see into my soul.</p>
<p>She climbs off on colt’s legs, shifting over to me, my already naked flesh willing and wanting.<br/>As she sits on my lap, my cock slips in easily finding her wet and still needy. Peeta rolls onto his side allowing us to shift over a little as I hold Katniss in place. I move within her, hitting that spot she loves while she looks down at me with trust and obvious naked desire.</p>
<p>She’s beautiful, I can feel every inch of me enveloped by her graceful hunter’s body as the snow whistles through the eaves of the house. The cold of the room has her nipples aroused further, I watch Peeta lean forward to capture one as I lift up to take the other. We work together drawing out a tight and quick orgasm from her shaking body until she’s pleading with me to come again.</p>
<p>I know exactly what she wants as I lift her up and set her back on the pillows.</p>
<p>Our pace becomes frantic and beautifully intense, her nails scrape down my back as she moans. Peeta roughly kisses her as she gets lost in the feeling of so much attention. I feel my orgasm fast approaching, as Peeta tentatively touches us. His touches get bolder as my body tightens. His fingers brush the underside of the head, his thumb stroking down the center of my length almost as if he knew what I enjoy. The blinding heat and tightness of my stomach is almost too much to bear. I feel like a violin string wound too tight. She shifts, her breasts swaying, the skin puckering in goose flesh. Her head falls back and I hear her cry out my name and Peeta’s over and over with the words I longed to hear.</p>
<p>“I love you, God, Haymitch… I love you. Peeta I love you both so much.” I feel myself drift over the edge in one of the best orgasms I’ve had in my life.<br/>As I start to come down, the bed shifts and I see Peeta get out and back away. Something was wrong.</p>
<p>“I, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.” He leaves the room quickly and I hear the shower start.</p>
<p>Katniss goes to get up and follow him, but I pull her back. “Wait. Let me.” I kiss her gently and slip out of the bed and pad down to the bathroom, finding Peeta in the tub with his arms clutched around his knees.</p>
<p>“Peeta.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I’m a sick mutt, I’m a mutt.” I can tell he’s talking about what we just did.</p>
<p>“You aren’t a mutt and you aren’t sick like that. You aren’t wrong for enjoying sex with a member of the same sex in the bed.”</p>
<p>“I touched you, my mom… she’d.”<br/>“Your mother is an abusive bitch.” Peeta flinches as the word bitch passes his ear, “There was nothing wrong with what we just did. You are a grown adult. You aren’t under her thumb anymore.”</p>
<p>I push back the curtain further and climb into the tub; wrapping my arms around him I fight his resistance until he finally ceases his struggle. I hear him mutter ‘sick mutt’ again and pull him down for a kiss as he gives in.<br/>The water feels wonderful as it pours over our bodies, the weight of Peeta against me feels almost as normal as Katniss. It shouldn’t be shameful to engage in something that made a person feel good.<br/>To be honest I was never one to care, sex was sex. But, there were some who considered it an aberration.</p>
<p>“Can we take this slow?” Peeta shifts, “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you both.”</p>
<p>“I can take a lot, hurt me.”</p>
<p>Peeta shakes his head, looking over me with my many scars. His eyes don’t speak of the ugliness he perceives, instead he traces the sword scar on my stomach, the muttation bird strike almost to the heart and the many others that I can’t recall.</p>
<p>“You’ve been hurt enough.”</p>
<p>The sensation of having him touch me reminds me of her, soft and innocent; questioning in its quest of discovery.</p>
<p>“You’ve always had these feelings haven’t you? like there was a piece missing?” I watch as he picks up a bar of goat soap. I’d taken over Prim’s goat when she passed and learned how to make cheese and other products. I allow him to wash me, his eyes roving over my body with a hunger I haven’t seen.</p>
<p>“I love Katniss.” his response is automatic with the medication in place. In a way he’s been conditioned to both love and hate her simultaneously.</p>
<p>“So do I, there isn’t any reason we can’t love each other too.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t…It’s wrong.” Peeta’s breathing picks up.</p>
<p>“Who says? Society? Fuck them. You and Katniss survived, I survived. We don’t owe them any more. Not a God damned thing. If we want to take comfort in each other, no one can tell us not to. We played their twisted game and won. Touch me if you want, let me be there for you… No one was there for me.”</p>
<p>Peeta’s mouth crashes into mine, rough, inexperienced, his tongue roving over my teeth; begging entry.</p>
<p>It’s no different than Finnick after he won. A boy lost and alone looking for guidance in the rough and sick world.</p>
<p>I cup his head, cradling it softly as he moans, the feel of him is heavy and heady. Both of them, both of them need me. I finally understand Katniss and her inexplicable need. I need to make us a team again, to keep them close.</p>
<p>I need time as he tries to touch me, moving his hands away, but he is ready, his cock brushing against my thigh. He looks down, his hands moving over my abdomen, his breath coming in short pants. I want to watch him come undone again. It’s been years since I’ve been with a man, but I have the urge to taste him.</p>
<p>I move to my knees, my hand stroking his thighs. His eyes are wide as my hand moves up and over his member, he is thick and long in form. Not too long as to be painful, but enough to be pleasurable.</p>
<p>As I move to my knees to take him in my mouth, his hands have no purchase until I place them on my head. I want to see his body bend in excess, to have him sigh in contentment; to have them both smile because of me. The feeling of him in my mouth is natural, I control his rhythm with light squeezes to his leg. I pull him in deeper, grasping his thighs tighter allowing him to soon abandon himself. I keep driving him to higher peaks, letting him have his desire.</p>
<p>“I… I never knew… Oh, please.. don’t stop.” I feel him hitting the back of my throat now, and breathe in, lifting the soft palate of my mouth; letting him slide home as I swallow. I keep swallowing as he slides up again, feeling his body tighten as he thrusts faster, his breathing going shallow. My nails drag lightly over his scrotum as he shivers and shouts my name, his release flowing quickly over my tongue. He tastes like lemons.</p>
<p>I keep sucking until he softens and nearly collapses. He slides out of my mouth and I kiss up his body, noting the line where they replaced his leg with a bio-synthesis prosthetic. I wonder how it felt to him. I’d never thought to ask.</p>
<p>He slides down kissing me softly this time, exploring every subtle nuance of my mouth with his tongue and I feel myself stir to life again. I know we’ve been in here for almost half an hour, but the water is still warm. I can hear Katniss in the next room singing and I feel satisfied.<br/>===============================================================</p>
<p>Without the Capitol, the games and the war, I realize that I have no other hobbies or way to occupy my time other than building and farming like my father taught me. Katniss helps but prefers to teach the adults how to hunt. She’s gone out early to show Hazelle how to track snowshoe hare.<br/>With Winter seemingly come early, the majority of building has been put on hold. We won’t have a new Hob raised in time for the Remembrance Festival.</p>
<p>It’s been three weeks of snow alternating with rain, but I’ve barely been by myself. Peeta and Katniss have been a constant and reassuring presence with little in the way of conflict. I find myself mediating any issues with Peeta in the way of medications but he sleeps better. The picture bed is large enough to fit us all comfortably. I come to know the names of Katniss’ ancestors on the headboard better than I know my own.</p>
<p>So it’s surprising to come back from the covered market on Friday the thirtieth to find the house decked out in orange flowers from Peeta’s greenhouse. Marigolds. I smell food I haven’t smelled in nearly twenty years cooking. Walking into the living room I see an altar set with copies of the bed daguerreotypes along with his ancestral photos, Merchant hair giving them away; but it’s the addition of my family photos that catches me off guard, Snow had been so nice to preserve them.</p>
<p>I know Peeta wants to help, but seeing my family on the altar makes me feel guilty. I realize I feel angry at myself. So many other families are gone because of me.<br/>I walk through the kitchen and see Peeta stirring a spicy brown sauce that smells familiar, a Seam recipe that my mother made every year when I was a child.</p>
<p>“Try this.” Peeta holds out a wooden spoon, “Molè sauce, Katniss gave me the recipe from her father, does it taste like it needs more cocoa?”</p>
<p>Cocoa is a prized commodity now along with so many other things but Peeta has a good supply line started. I don’t want to know what he’s exchanged in the way of food tokens and favors but he’s begun the new black market.</p>
<p>I lick the spoon, noticing that it lacks that nutty flavor that made it so rich and deep. It has enough of a cocoa base but more peanuts would round it out. Once he added the stock soaked chicken it would be perfect.</p>
<p>“Needs more peanuts and maybe more pumpkin seed. I’m going to go milk Sadie. Did you order that new rennet for the cheese culture?”</p>
<p>“On the counter.” I don’t bring up the photos, I don’t want to ruin his obvious happiness at the three of us sharing Twelve’s holiday together as a family. We haven’t touched each other much since that first night but he enjoys giving Katniss the utmost attention. I know he’s apologized, I can see it in the touch of his hands, revenant.</p>
<p>He’s never told me how he felt about touching me, nor me him but I feel his eyes move over my body, the press of his arousal which he staunchly tries to ignore except with her. Damn his mother for putting these backward notions into his head. I’d never been into the reformist movement, the only accepted district religion before the Capitol fell; but my father had. He too had been a staunch traditionalist, reading the scriptures and taking them at the word of the priest.</p>
<p>The fact that people clung to such notions with the population as low as it was, of denying happiness after so much death and destruction, was ludicrous. As I touch his shoulder lightly in passing, he pulls me back.</p>
<p>“Wait.”</p>
<p>“I have to go milk the goats and check on the geese.”</p>
<p>“Haymitch.”</p>
<p>“I have to go.” I don’t want to hear about the holiday or his recipes , I just want the four days to end. The graveyard dedication is happening tomorrow. I recall the ossuary box in my house containing the bones of my mother and brother. I should inter them, assign them to the grave and give them peace.</p>
<p>“Damn it! The goats and geese can fucking wait!” There’s rage and fear in his voice, the spoon flies past my head and clatters to the ground spraying molè sauce over the clean floor.</p>
<p>I turn back putting my gray cap on the counter, sensing a meltdown starting.</p>
<p>“Peet, use your words.” My voice becomes low and soft as Katniss’ does when she’s calming him.</p>
<p>“Give me five words for the anger. Breathe in, one, two, three. Out, two, three.”</p>
<p>“Rage, disquiet, upheaval, disconcerting, pissed.”</p>
<p>“Ok,” I shed my jacket dropping it next to the feed bucket by the back door, “who are you directing it at?”</p>
<p>“My mother, they’re all coming. I don’t know what to do.”</p>
<p>“When?” I come up behind him and tentatively touch, increasing the pressure of my hands on his shoulders as he leans into my neck. We pause like that for a few minutes, while he allows me to hold him. I’ve always been told I had strong hands. As he shifts back to work, I move my thumbs across the expanse of his shoulder blades as he blows out the pilot wick on the coal stove and leans over to the left to grab the dutch oven.<br/>He sighs, grabbing a new spoon. The roast chicken stock and roasted poblanos smell amazing.</p>
<p>“I’ve got to check if the coals are down enough for the chicken.”</p>
<p>I spy the chicken on the table, freshly trussed with Buttercup edging near to sniff.</p>
<p>“You steal that chicken and you’ll be strung up by your tail.” I watch Peeta heft a paring knife cutting another section of twine to portion the chicken off into four parts. He’s never been rude to the cat before, “They’ll be here at about seven pm or so.”</p>
<p>“It’s only one now, we have plenty of time.”</p>
<p>“I know,” I watch him rake the coal, the embers glowing a deep red, “Grab the chicken.”</p>
<p>Gathering the chicken from the table and narrowly avoiding Buttercup’s paws, I bring it over unscathed.</p>
<p>“Do you want me to help?” The geese and goats can wait, Peeta is more important right now.</p>
<p>“Yes, thank you!” The relief in his voice is palpable.</p>
<p>Over the last three weeks, I’ve noticed Peeta’s executive functioning skills tend to lower with increased stress. He is unable to concentrate on multitasking, and his ability to rationalized and categorize is overthrown by intense fear.<br/>I cannot imagine what he perceives during the throws of an attack.</p>
<p>“Pass me the spices to the left, start with the cinnamon and anise seeds.” I watch as he salts and coats the bird with various spices before placing it in the dutch oven to roast for an hour.<br/>As the hour passes, Peeta pours a scotch and passes it to me while working on the corn husks. He’s been cooking the pork for hours. I realize now why Mellark Family Bakery became even more popular in the fall. Peeta made the tamales for the Seam folks who didn’t have the money to cook for the festival.</p>
<p>“Peeta, tell me what you want out of life? Besides this?” I make another tortilla and press marigold petals into the soft dough, tossing it between sheets of parchment paper.</p>
<p>“No one besides Katniss even thought of asking me that, I guess I want kids and to open a cooking school.”</p>
<p>“I like it, you would make a good teacher.” My floured hand reaches for his, finding him open and receptive. The peace I feel with them is about to be invaded by the Mellark family and Gale’s. I hear the front door open and Peeta yanks his hand away as though burned, his cheeks scarlet with indoctrinated shame.</p>
<p>“It’s Kat, Peeta, it’s just Kat.” He didn’t even feel comfortable expressing himself in his own home. His hand moves back caressing mine apologetically. She walks through to the kitchen and places her field bag on the butcher block, pulling out six snowshoe hares with white and black fur.</p>
<p>“We have enough rabbit here for four meals I think. I can even make us some nice gloves and possibly a hat.” Katniss sounds satisfied, “Hazelle caught two turkeys up on the ridge, we even managed to sell the tom. She also scored three rabbits herself. It smells wonderful in here.”</p>
<p>“Did you take a look at the altar?” Peeta sounds bright at the prospect of her approval.</p>
<p>“You mean the ofrenda? Yes, you set it up just right. I still have to get Santa Muerte from the altar in our room and mom’s statue of Mary. What do you think Haymitch?”</p>
<p>The look on her face is to beautiful for me to ruin it, “I’m glad you thought of me. Where did you find them all anyway? I buried them in a box behind the wall.”</p>
<p>“I found them when I went to find those land deeds you said were upstairs. Apparently you like to hide a lot of important things up there. There’s a box that’s locked and wrapped in a red blanket.”</p>
<p>“Don’t touch it.” I feel the coldness creep into my voice and her smile slightly falters, “It’s my mother and brother.”</p>
<p>“Oh… Haymitch…”</p>
<p>“Don’t, babydoll, please don’t. You didn’t know any better.”</p>
<p>“Prim’s are at the church. Mom sent them for the dedication. There’s still room.”</p>
<p>It’s been nearly a year, but my hands still remember placing the final stone with the townspeople treating me as something other than a murderer and Capitol tool. As a builder, even in a limited sense I was pulled in with Johanna Mason to reconstruct Twelve and other hard hit districts. I guess my father did teach me something useful. I’m still glad the bastard died in a cave in.</p>
<p>“You should have let me go with you when you got them.”</p>
<p>“I needed some time.”</p>
<p>Identification after the Capitol bombing had taken over half a year, by the time Prim’s remains had been identified it was already August. I could still recall how she came over in the afternoon and drank without saying a word before telling me to shut up as she pulled off her summer dress and pulled my head down between her legs.</p>
<p>The heat of her on that August afternoon was overwhelming, but her taste and sounds were worth it. The slashes on her thighs were mixed with faded and fresh lines. The feeling of her clenching as my tongue drove her mad on that desk cemented the beginning of a regularly recurring sexual relationship that I did not know would turn out as it did. It was the end of her need to cut her flesh, I made sure of it.</p>
<p>I watch as Peeta pulls out the chicken and begins ladling stock over it. He then tastes a bit and brings me a small piece from the wing. It’s moist enough but the stock will make it fall off the bone.</p>
<p>“How much longer do you need to cook? It’s getting near four. Hazelle wants to know when you want her to bring the pastelles you like so much.” The mishmash of cultures in such a small area made for interesting holidays.</p>
<p>“I have room in the warmer if she wants to come now. Haymitch can you pull down the sugar skulls I have in the container on the dry rack?” Having the two of us present again is alleviating his stress. I pull down a rather large bin lined with soft silicone, opening the lid I see sugar skulls of all shapes and sizes bearing the initials of our ancestors. I’m still shocked to see he’s included mine for all the pain the pictures bring.</p>
<p>“You want to help me put them out?”</p>
<p>“Sure.” Kaniss hangs the salted and baking soda coated rabbit meat on the dry hook of the smoker and pulls out the chorizo for Peeta. The rabbit will smoke for not more than thirty minutes, just to remove the game flavor.<br/>Katniss follows me into the living room, and I begin putting the skulls on the surface of the ofrenda as she dials Hazelle, inviting her over for six.</p>
<p>There, as I sort through the skulls, is the one with my father’s initials. A.A. Ansel Abernathy.<br/>I locate the photo of my father and hold the skull in my palm. Does he deserve to be remembered in this new family of mine? The man had put my name in illegally for sixty tesserae and sold it all for gambling money and booze. He’d caused my mother and brother untold amounts of pain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I didn’t want him to be remembered. I quietly remove his portrait from between his parents, Martha and Abel Abernathy and slip it into my pocket. The sugar skull followed. Katniss comes up behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, her chin resting against my bicep as she surveys Peeta’s work. “He’s really enjoying this.”</p>
<p>“He’s making enough food for twenty people or more.”</p>
<p>“So we’ll give it out besides the festival lasts for four days.” The house smells of copal incense.</p>
<p>“We’ll be able to feed a horde at this rate.” I continue placing sugar skulls at each deceased relative’s portrait and place the larger skulls next to the candles. My fingers smell of vanilla and sugar.<br/>The scents are starting to get to me. Closing the bin I set it behind the ofrenda and walk to the front door, opening it on a rainy square. Katniss trails behind, following me down the stairs as I pull a roll of green man out of my cigarette case and put it to my lips, igniting it. I clear my mind with the scent of petrichor and herb.</p>
<p>“I noticed a gap in the portraits.”</p>
<p>“I knew you would,” I pull out the picture of my father and hand it to her. “Ansel Abernathy, miner by trade but builder by birth. Drunken gambler by pastime. He put my name in sixty times for tesserae illegally and sold them off for more booze and gambling bets. I watched my mother and brother starve.” The cigarette sits at an angle in my mouth and I can feel the flood of relaxation as I inhale. I’ve only started smoking them recently with Katniss but they cut down on the cravings for alcohol.</p>
<p>I take another inhale and pass it to her, watching as she holds it between her two fingers and realize that I am content. My father in the past would have induced rage. The mere sight of him used to put me on an alcoholic bent. I may be forty-three now but this slip of a girl has quietly shaped me into a decent man since June.</p>
<p>“You’re nothing like him you know,” The sound of Peeta’s voice is warm but serious. Everyone knew the history of the Abernathy family, but they didn’t know anything beyond the drunk who stole from the Capitol and died in a convenient cave in, they didn’t know the truth.</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t you go relax for five minutes handsome?” I turn to look over my shoulders, seeing him in his burnt orange cable knit sweater, jeans tight as though they were poured on. The blonde of his merchant hair is curling in the weather and I see something I’ve never noticed before.</p>
<p>“You straighten your hair.”</p>
<p>“Portia said it was easier to manage but I’ve been out of hair serum about a month.”</p>
<p>I know I’m changing the subject, ignoring the matter at hand, but the last thing I want to do is discuss my past when we have guests coming over. Katniss passes the cigarette back and walks over to Peeta who is standing not four feet behind me with a rather large gourd in his hand. It has a carving of a green man with a long beard and a crown of oak leaves. I remember northern merchant children celebrate the hallowed eve before All Souls Day by driving the devil away with carved lanterns and sweets handed out.</p>
<p>I wonder what his bitch of a mother is going to think about him celebrating a Seam tradition as opposed to her white bread reformist holiday of quiet contemplation. The two holidays were celebrated along with the field blessing each year for a better harvest and the bonfire. I have a feeling there won’t be a bonfire this year.</p>
<p>“The pumpkin looks good, when did you get time to carve it? Katniss runs her fingers over the delicate lines of the green man’s beard.<br/>Peeta blushes at the compliment.<br/>“Last night.” Last night when he was supposed to be sleeping, last night when he thought I wouldn’t feel him tracing over the whip scars on my back.</p>
<p>“Johanna called, she’s catching the train in about an hour. She and Annie are coming up with Finn.”</p>
<p>Little Finn was the spitting image of his father down to every detail with the exception of his hair, he had his mother’s shock of bright red hair. He was almost a year old now, precocious as ever. The little boy could swim like a fish already.</p>
<p>“They staying? We have a spare room but they’ll probably want some privacy.” Katniss suspected that there was more going on between the two women than they liked to let on. Not that it was any of her business.</p>
<p>“I can open up another house.” Peeta had found the keys to the Victor houses, trying to offer them to the recovering families but so far no one except for Greasy Sae and her granddaughter had accepted.<br/>Johanna and Annie had been up to help with the reconstruction, but never for relaxation. It would be a different change of pace, like much in their lives. It could be good to just let their hair down.<br/>Relaxing had been something they’d never had the chance to do during the Capitol control, during Snow’s control.</p>
<p>Staring out upon the wet Victor’s square I stretch, the feeling of my joints popping in protest really shows my age compared to the youth of my loves. However, I don’t envy them; I’m just glad I get to be a part of it. I’ll take every new discovery and cherish it.</p>
<p>“What else do you need help with Peeta?” I call back to the blonde taking another puff or two, listening to the gravel crunch as he jogged up beside me.</p>
<p>“We still have the sopitas to heat up. I finished the tamales Katniss and the molè sauce is done. The chicken was mixed in. Haymitch we need the queso fresca and the cojita.”</p>
<p>I nod bringing my arm up to rest on his shoulder, feeling his arm pull me in close as I finish the cigarette crunching it out beneath my foot. Turning to him I allow him to pull me in and hold me for a few moments.”</p>
<p>“You make good tortillas, the mix crisped nicely.”</p>
<p>It’s the first compliment I’ve ever received for my cooking and it makes me feel strange. I’m not used to hearing positive things about myself. The nearest compliment I’ve gotten outside of the bedroom was that I fought well. Rummage, my mentor, was killed soon after for his failure as a game maker the next year.</p>
<p>I kiss the top of his head in thanks and he lets go as he turns to walk back with Katniss. The sound of a truck coming up Victor’s Way however, makes us all pause before we can go back inside. I watch Peeta visibly tense, he knows that truck.</p>
<p>The door slams and a woman with short blonde hair hops down and out.</p>
<p>“Peter James Mellark, come help your momma with these cakes.”</p>
<p>The set of his shoulders slips from confidence into subservience.</p>
<p>“Peeta, I’ve got it, head on inside.” I walk over to Rita, taking the two bakery boxes in hand as she hands them off and she shuts the door with a fierce bang that echoes down the empty causeway.</p>
<p>“Boy looks like a dog bit him or something with the way his tail tucks between his legs. How he survived is still a wonder. I see you’ve been off the sauce.”</p>
<p>“Do me a favor and don’t say things like that to my…” My lover? My friend? My tribute? What exactly did I call him? “Don’t talk about the games or the war. It’s not something we want to relive.”</p>
<p>“My son is a hero, you all are, should be proud.” Rita looks at her nails as she leans against the truck’s door and I have the strongest urge to yell at her to get the hell off our property.</p>
<p>“We’re survivors Rita, not heroes. There aren’t any heroes here.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t answer but I know she has a good understanding. Walking back in I find Katniss setting out the coffee on the ofrenda with a plate of food. I invite Rita to sit and she looks over the scene with a raised eyebrow. This can’t have been the first ofrenda she’s seen.The Seam remembrance festival might be small this year, but each house on the high road has theirs set up and brightly colored thanks to Peeta giving out marigolds.</p>
<p>“Kat, I’m going to go milk the goats, can you hold down the fort?” I needed to check on Peeta without his mother being alerted to anything odd.</p>
<p>“I’m good here Haymitch.”</p>
<p>“So you and my son are still together? You haven’t come down to visit since coming back but I figured to show up when you sent the invitation. Your home looks lovely… very… festive.”<br/>Hazelle couldn’t come fast enough. At least she could handle Rita.</p>
<p>Walking through to the kitchen, I see he’s pulled out the cheese and rosemary bread, arranging it on a platter with the chorizo.</p>
<p>“She wasn’t supposed to come until seven. She never listens.”</p>
<p>“Come help me with the goats.”</p>
<p>“I still have a ton to do.”</p>
<p>“Peeta, come here.” I walk behind the table and pull him away from the stove.</p>
<p>“We’re going to milk the goats!”</p>
<p>I grab the feed bucket along with the milking bucket and pull him behind me with the door slamming behind us. Peeta walks through to the side barn and grabs the milking stool but it can wait as I push him against the wall catching his lips with mine. His knees threaten to buckle in the hay but I keep him upright. I shift his legs apart and kiss him until he can’t breath, his fists tightening in my hair as he moans nipping my lip. It feels good to have him falling apart. I’m starting to crave him just as much as I crave her.</p>
<p>When we pull apart I see Rita Mellark standing by the door.</p>
<p>“So this is milking goats? Looks a lot different than it did when I was young. Didn’t take you for one to go against what you’ve been taught.”</p>
<p>“Momma…”</p>
<p>“And Abernathy, just how long have you been unnatural with my son?”<br/>“Listen, I understand you have your thoughts and beliefs but I don’t share them.”</p>
<p>“You may not share them, but it’s what’s right. Peter get in the house.”</p>
<p>“Wait, wait. Hold up there sweetheart. This is our home, Peeta’s, Katniss’ and mine. We have the right to be here. We earned this place. Not you or anybody else. No one is going to tell a man I love, a man who helped save your pathetic abusive ass along with the rest of our country; to go anywhere in his home. You live because of us, we bought you a place in Thirteen with our blood. His games paid for the food on your plate, the tobacco in your pipe. It paid for the rebuilding of our district. The winnings and reparations you squandered away could have kept you comfortable anywhere FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! But you chose to come back here and now you choose to use your backwards, ancient, hokey religious interpretation to put your son down again and again! You called him a hero not five minutes ago but you sure as hell don’t give him the respect he deserves.”</p>
<p>“Are you done?” She proceeds to light up a cigarette and take a drag.</p>
<p>“No I’m not done, have you seen the state of this place? The garden? The barn? Everything Peeta built up here? He did that, he put his sweat into making this his home again. If he finds comfort in fucking a man or a woman, you should say ‘I’m happy son,’ it’s a hell of a lot better than having to bury him!”</p>
<p>“Haymitch? Katniss walked into the barn pushing past Rita and looks between us with apprehension. “What’s going on?”</p>
<p>“Are you sleeping with him too?” Rita gestures to me as I grab Peeta’s left hand.</p>
<p>“What the hell are you talking about? And what business is that of yours?”</p>
<p>“I’m his mother.”</p>
<p>“STOP! STOP TALKING OVER ME LIKE I DON’T EXIST!”</p>
<p>Peeta slams his fist into the wood, “FUCK!” he cradles his hand after an audible crack is heard.</p>
<p>“I’m real damn it, I’m real, I’m here! I have a voice! Mom, you come here and you take over and you complain and criticize everything I do. You’ve always treated me like I was less than, like I was a stray dog not worth your time unless you wanted a punch bag…or… or a…” He can’t bring himself to continue for a moment as he seethes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I AM NOT A CHILD ANYMORE! You don’t have the right to comment on what’s holy and acceptable to God, you especially when you allowed my brother… You can’t comment on my sex life, you can’t comment on my home and you especially cannot comment on the lives of the people I love! If you can’t sit the hell down and shut the FUCK UP, THEN GET OUT!”</p>
<p>He breathes heavily as he watches his mother stalk out of the barn, “This isn’t the way I raised you.”</p>
<p>“No, it’s not and I’m GLAD! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING THE ALTAR!”</p>
<p>“Kat, I’ll look after him, go make sure she leaves.”</p>
<p>I feel Peeta sliding down the wall and join him, pulling him to me as he sobs.</p>
<p>It takes Peeta about twenty minutes before he can get up, his hand swollen and purple.</p>
<p>“How the hell can I continue cooking like this? The tomatillo salad still needs to be finished.”</p>
<p>“First you let me tape up that hand and then you tell me what to do.” I feel guilt in my voice, “Peeta… I didn’t know she would come out here. It’s my fault.”</p>
<p>“Stop, she was bound to find out sooner or later. Let’s just be glad she won’t be coming over for Yule.” He starts laughing covering his eyes with his good hand, “What the hell was I thinking?”</p>
<p>“You were trying to extend an olive branch.”</p>
<p>“I guess there’s one less photo for the Ofrenda when she passes.”</p>
<p>“If it makes you feel better, I took my father off for the same reason.”</p>
<p>“So your father let your brother molest you? He did nothing? From the time you were twelve until nearly sixteen? Acting like you were normal with a happy perfect family at church on Sundays?”</p>
<p>“No, my father did the molesting and then he bought tesserae illegally with my game entries and sold it off for booze and gambling.”</p>
<p>“Why do I still want this when it happened like that? How can you want to touch me? It’s…”</p>
<p>“Look, what happened to us isn’t our fault. It’s theirs. As to why we turned out the way we did, that’s nature not nurture. Why fight it if it makes us feel good? If it makes us feel like we belong in a world that tried to destroy us? Who are these people to judge us? They aren’t with us in our bed. It has nothing to do with them. It concerns you, me, and Katniss. That’s it.”</p>
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